The Vaticans announcement May 20 that Legionaries of Christ
founder Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado will face no canonical trial for numerous
accusations of sexually abusing seminarians put a spotlight on the new papacy
of Benedict XVI, raising questions and drawing harsh criticism from
victims.

In many circles, the announcement, widely distributed by the
Legionaries, was seen as the Vaticans way of saying case
closed on the questions surrounding Maciel and the accusations of sexual
abuse first made public by a group of former seminarians and, in recent months,
by a growing number of other alleged victims.

Four days after that initial announcement, however, NCR learned
that the original statement on the matter was issued not by the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith, which has jurisdiction over priest sex abuse
cases, but by the Vatican Secretariat of State, which is run by Italian
Cardinal Angelo Sodano, a vocal supporter of the Legionaries and a longtime
friend of Maciel.

Whether that fact makes any difference in the eventual disposition of
the case against Maciel is unclear. The revelation, however, at least clouds
the picture and hints at potentially differing agendas within the churchs
highest bureaucracy. For while the Secretariat of State said that there is no
canonical proceeding, nor is one expected in the future, the Congregation for
the Doctrine of the Faith, at least until recently, was engaged in an extensive
investigation that was characterized as preliminary to any canonical
action.

A complicated tale

The complicated tale of pronouncements began May 21 when Fr. Ciro
Benedittini, a spokesman in the Vatican press office, told The New YorkTimes: There is no investigation now, and it is not foreseeable
that there will be another investigation in the future.
Benedittinis announcement confirmed a Catholic News Service story of the
day before, published in response to a Legion statement. Jay Dunlap,
communications director for the Legionaries in North America, told TheNew York Times that the Holy Sees announcement sounds
like an exoneration of Maciel.

The announcement that church legal proceedings would not go forward
apparently foreclosed a major investigation underway by a representative of the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican agency most recently
headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who was elected Pope Benedict XVI in
April.

This transparent whitewash aborts the churchs legal system
to the benefit of Maciel and to the harm of brave, persistent
victims, David Clohessy, director of Survivors Network for those Abused
by Priests (SNAP), said in a statement released May 22.

According to observers in Rome, the publication of a lengthy May 20
report on the Maciel case by Italian journalist Sandro Magister, headlined
A trial against Fr. Maciel is drawing ever more near, may have
prompted the declaration, presumed by most to have come from the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith and addressed to the general headquarters of the
Legionaries in Rome. Typically, the doctrinal congregation does not comment on
whether it is investigating someone.

The fact that Msgr. Charles Scicluna was investigating Maciel had been
widely reported.

Even if the announcement by the Secretariat of State proves correct,
what remains unclear is whether the decision reflects a finding within the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that the charges against Maciel are
unconvincing -- or whether, holding aside the evidence Scicluna obtained, the
decision was made not to prosecute because Maciel is 85 and recently resigned
as the orders superior. Speaking at the time of Maciels resignation
last January, one senior Vatican official predicted that those factors would
weigh significantly in an eventual decision.

Congregation remains mum

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the agency responsible
for judging such cases, has remained mum on the case and refused to comment on
the recent confusion about the Vatican and Legionaries announcements.

By failing to clarify what the investigation by Scicluna, the promoter
of justice at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, had found, the
Vatican statement left significant questions unanswered. In recent weeks,
Scicluna interviewed at least 32 people in America and Mexico about Maciel,
telling them it was for a report to the pope.

The pope can halt or intervene in any canonical case. If the case was
halted:

Why did Benedict XVI decide against an ecclesiastical trial?

Will the Holy See affirm Maciels innocence, something it has
not done since the sex abuse allegations by nine former Legionaries were first
reported in 1997 by the Hartford (Conn.) Courant?

If not, how does the Vatican explain the allegations?

Will the congregation destroy its investigative findings, as canon
law allows when an authority declines to prosecute a canonical case?

Was Scicluna allowed to finish the report?

Has Benedict XVI read it?

The announcement jolted those who filed the 1998 canonical case against
Maciel at the Vatican. We must be exonerated of the accusations against
us by the Legionaries, José Barba, a professor at the Instituo
Tecnologico Autonimo Mexico, told NCR by telephone from Mexico City.
We are the victims and we have been telling the truth. If the Holy See
does not make a declaration of the truth, we stand in limbo. Is that
justice?

Since the 1997 Courant report on the allegations by seven
Mexicans and two Spaniards, the Legions public statements and Web site
have accused Barba, a historian with a doctorate from Harvard, and the eight
others of a conspiracy to damage Maciels reputation. Maciel, who has
denied the charges in issued statements, has remained unavailable to the media
since 1997.

Although the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has a history of
singling out theologians for punishment, no high church official has been
publicly punished by the Vatican for sexual crimes under canon law.

Maciel lives in Rome at the Legion headquarters, though in late April he
was reportedly in Cotija, his birthplace in Mexico. Vatican sources told
NCR May 25 that Maciel was in Mexico making pastoral visits to Legion
facilities and was expected to return to Rome.

In 1998, Archbishop Augusto Mullor, the papal nuncio in Mexico, told
Barba, The church has tribunals of her own, encouraging him to file
a canonical grievance against Maciel. Msgr. Antonio Roqueni, a leading canonist
in Mexico City, and Martha Wegan, a canonist licensed to practice at the
Vatican, worked on the complaint filed with the congregation that accused
Maciel of giving absolution in confession to his victims, a moral crime that
has no statute of limitations under canon law.

Barba called Wegan, the canonist in Rome, after the Vatican announcement
that Maciel would not be prosecuted. She had received no word from
the congregation about the announcement, he told NCR.

When he was congregation prefect, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger halted
proceedings at Christmas 1999, later telling a Mexican bishop that it was
delicate because of Maciels record in attracting young men to
the priesthood. Maciel and the Legionaries enjoyed lavish praise from Pope John
Paul II, who never acknowledged the allegations. Late last year, Ratzinger
ordered the case to proceed (NCR, Jan. 7) -- in fact, resurrecting it --
and dispatched Scicluna to investigate.

On April 2 in New York, Scicluna interviewed Juan Vaca. Vaca had made
the first canonical protest of Maciel to Rome in 1976, as a priest who had left
the Legion for the Rockville Centre, N.Y., diocese. With his bishops
support Vaca sent a list of 20 men identified as victims to the Vatican. The
dossier included a statement from a second ex-Legionary, Fr. Félix
Alarcón, affirming that he too was a victim of Maciel. The Vatican did
nothing then, nor in 1978 nor 1989 when Vaca sought action against Maciel. Vaca
left the priesthood and married.

Scicluna told me, We owe you guys an apology. The church did
not protect you,  Vaca told NCR after the news broke from
Rome.

I am outraged, Vaca said. We are being
re-abused.

On April 3, with television riveted on the solemn beauty of the events
surrounding John Pauls death, Scicluna was off to Mexico City.

There, over the next week, 30 witnesses went to Casa de Santa Brigida, a
three-story convent in a nondescript building at 57 Avenido Uno. The Vatican
canonist asked them to swear on a rosary that their testimony was truthful;
witnesses also signed formal documents under seal by the Holy See. A Mexican,
Fr. Pedro Miguel Funes Díaz, sat by Scicluna, typing on a laptop,
notarizing the testimonies with signatures and an official Vatican stamp.

Scicluna refused to comment on any aspect of the investigation.

The Vatican removed Maciel from his position in 1956 during a period
when, according to Barba and others, he was addicted to a morphine drug known
as dolantine. These events are omitted from the Legionaries official
history. Maciel was reinstated in early 1959.

The men who brought the 1998 canonical case said they were intimidated
into lying to the Vatican investigators in the 1950s. The Legion claims Maciel
was innocent and that the 1998 charges were long since disproven.

Three new witnesses

In April, however, the radius of accusations widened in Mexico, as men
who had not gone public before testified to Scicluna. La Jornada, a
Mexican daily, identified three new witnesses, including Carlos de Isla, a
professor of philosophy in his 70s, who was one of the first 12 youths to join
Maciels fledgling order in 1941, but soon left. The content of his
testimony is not known. Two other men not party to the 1998 case testified
about Maciels abuses, Salvador Andrade and Francisco González
Parga. The latter admitted, according to those present at the meeting,
that after being the object of Maciels abuse, he began to use drugs and
that his superiors, upon realizing this, neither said nor did anything,
the newspaper reported.

Twenty people gave direct testimony that they were abused,
Barba told NCR.

The news from Rome left bitter feelings in Mexico.

We gave a vote of confidence to this pope, Barba told
NCR. We were asked to sign a paper of the Holy See saying we would
not disclose our written testimonies, which we signed. We presented new
witnesses to Scicluna that prove Maciel was doing the same things after
1959.

One of those testifying was José Antonio Pérez Olvera, an
attorney whose brother also left the Legion after being pursued by Maciel,
according to a story by Alma E. Muñoz of La Jornada.

Another witness was Alejandro Espinosa, author of El Legionario,
a memoir of alleged sexual encounters with Maciel that has sold 20,000
copies in Mexico. Espinosa left the Legion in the early 1960s and was one of
the first to accuse Maciel. Espinosa told NCR on May 2 that Scicluna
assured him he had a strong case against Maciel. Espinosa and others have long
maintained that Maciel was cleared by the Vatican in 1958 because the young
seminarians had taken a vow never to speak ill of Maciel and to report such
statements to their superiors.

I was told by Maciel not to tell the truth, said Espinosa, a
trim, forceful man with wavy silver hair. I didnt know whether to
be obedient to my superiors or the Vatican. I was trembling when I
talked to them [in 1958] because I knew I was lying. I swore on a
Bible.

Maciel, who turned 85 in March, has lived for many years at the Legion
headquarters in Rome. He has had his tomb constructed at Our Lady of Guadalupe
Church in Rome, which he built in the 1950s, demonstrating early prowess as a
fundraiser. Maciels picture hangs in Legion schools in several countries,
where students -- like Legion seminarians -- have long been taught that he is a
living saint.

Maciel enjoyed remarkable support from Pope John Paul II, which gave the
Legionaries a base of support in attacking the charges, even after Scicluna was
given a green light to gather information.

This investigation will be an atomic bomb for the
Legionaries, Msgr. Roqueni, a canonist who gave testimony to Scicluna,
predicted in a May 4 interview with NCR in Mexico City. Referring to the
orders history of cultivating bishops and cardinals, Roqueni said:
Scicluna is more interested in the Legionaries. He told me, They
are corrupt. 

Just how far Scicluna, also a canonist, was able to follow his leads is
unclear because the native of Malta works under a pontifical vow of secrecy, as
do all staffers at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Substantial information has been published by the author of a Spanish
book, among other books that were provided to Scicluna as secondary source
material. Los documentos secretos de los Legionarios de Cristo
(The secret documents of the Legionaries of Christ), published last
fall in Madrid by religion reporter José Martínez de Velasco,
quotes extracts from internal files the author obtained from disaffected
Legionary priests in Spain and Ireland. Several of those priests were
reportedly prepared to give testimony. The book is published by Ediciones B of
Barcelona, one of Spains most prestigious publishing houses.

One chapter focuses on events at Regina Apostolarum, the Legions
academic complex in Rome. Cardinals and bishops are in demand for its
conferences and receptions. Who among them knew their comments were being
written down by seminarians as internal reports for the order? Martínez
de Velasco quotes from the documents that seminarians wrote, quoting prominent
guests, including Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos, prefect of the
Congregation for Clergy at the Vatican.

The petty, backbiting memos as quoted offer little important information
about Castrillón Hoyos or the bishops identified. But the account shows
the order assigned seminarians to cater to illustrious guests only to spy on
them and write accounts of what the visitors say for internal files. The author
suggests that this practice extends the mentality created by the special vow,
never to speak illof Maciel and to report on anyone who does.

Investigations impact

Scicluna left Mexico April 12, before Ratzinger was elected pope. He had
enough secondary material to fill a trunk: eight books in Spanish, stacks of
articles and documentaries that mostly portray Maciel as a predatory figure
whose pathological behavior is defended by an entrenched culture of
disinformation.

The dossier of materials Barba provided for Scicluna included the first
book published about Maciel: La prodigiosa aventura de los Legionarios de
Cristo (The prodigious adventure of the Legionaries of Christ,
2001)by Alfonso Torres Robles, a pioneering Spanish journalist who has a sequel
forthcoming. Another book by José Martínez de Velasco, published
in 2002, is titled Los Legionarios de Cristo, el nuevo ejército del
Papa (The Legionaries of Christ, the popes new army).

The books included El circulo del poder y la espiral del silencio
(The circle of power and the spiral of silence), a collection of
essays by several prominent religious sociologists, with a lead article by
Fernando González, a psychoanalyst with a doctorate in Sociology from
the Sorbonne. El nombre del Padre: Depredadores sexuales en la Iglesia
(The name of the father: Sexual predators in the church) by Carlos
Fazio, a sociologist and prominent writer, examines Maciel in the context of
global abuse scandals. Votas de silencio is the Spanish translation of
Vows of Silence by this reporter and Gerald Renner.

In the last several years, as the Mexican media provided forums to
authors, contributors and journalists on their findings, Maciel refused to
respond, relying on Legion officials to reiterate his defense. Against this
background, Sciclunas visit emboldened the Mexican media.

Father Maciel Has Been Defeatedread a May 3 headline in the
daily Milenio by columnist Ciro Gómez Leyva, one of the
countrys leading journalists and host of a cable news show. It is
the end for Fr. Maciel, he wrote.

Aside from whatever conclusion the prosecutor might reach, the Holy See
and Pope Benedict XVI have reason to question Maciels responsibility in
these sexual assaults against seminarians, almost children really, in the
seminaries of the Legion of Christ. As with Pinochet in Chile the final
verdict will be secondary to the high points of the life of Marcial Maciel. The
Vatican seems to have understood and accepted that the accusers bring together
enough elements of verisimilitude, trustworthiness and credibility that it is
imperative that attention be paid to them.

Such words were unthinkable a few years ago. Graduates of Legion schools
and Northern Anahuac University in Mexico City, its flagship university, occupy
considerable power in Mexican business, society and politics. Gómez
Leyva learned that the hard way in 1997, after a documentary in which he and
Marisa Iglesias profiled Maciels accusers: An advertisers boycott
nearly killed the channel.

Early this month, the documentary, updated, aired in prime time.

I showed Msgr. Scicluna two documentaries, and he took
notes, Barba told NCR.

The comparison of Maciel and Pinochet has an ironic parallel with
Cardinal Angelo Sodana, the Vatican secretary of state and Maciels
strongest supporter within the Roman curia. Sodano was papal nuncio in Chile
during the Pinochet years, when the dictatorship welcomed Maciel and the
Legionaries.

Roberta Garza, another Milenio columnist, writes from the
industrial capital of Monterey, Mexico. Garzas comments have special
resonance as one of her brothers, Luis Garza, is the second-highest Legionary
priest in Rome, under Alvaro Corcuera Martínez del Rio, a 47-year-old
Mexican, who is the orders new director general. (Maciel retired in
December, citing reasons of age, as news broke of Sciclunas probe.)
The problem with setting up these artificial altars is that, as with all
divinities, they exact tribute, Roberta Garza wrote of Maciel on May
8.

Avoiding U.S. media

Maciel avoided the U.S. media long before he was accused in 1997. That
is why he is barely known to most U.S. Catholics. That anonymity was a
calculated strategy at the Legions Orange, Conn., headquarters well
before my colleague, Gerald Renner, did the first reports in the Hartford
Courant of two young men escaping from the Legion seminary, complaining of
psychological coercion, and of what some termed the Legions shadowy
fundraising tactics.

Maciel made orchestrated appearances for fundraisers and events for
Regnum Christi, the orders lay arm that helps raise money. Because he
does not speak English, a Legion priest was always there to translate.
Maciels commercial value lay in his elite mystique -- a courageous
anticommunist, a confidante of the pope. To subject Nuestro
Padre -- Our Father, as he is known within the order and Regnum
Christi -- to any press scrutiny risked puncturing the façade of a
living saint, his heroic persona in the Legions literature.

As the books by various authors point out, the history of the
orders founding is riddled with factual errors and historical
inconsistencies, designed to promote Maciels cult of personality.

At conferences and fundraisers Maciel told the story of seeing
priests bodies hanged in his hometown during the anticlerical
persecutions in the 1930s, after the Mexican Revolution. That may be true; but
other events, such as his heroic leading of Catholic protests in Veracruz,
Mexico, in 1937, as a teenager, against an anticlerical government, are
preposterous on their face and lack historical proof. Maciels persona
succeeded in attracting orthodox followers and raising huge sums from those
with wealth. He appealed to those recoiling from cultural changes in a
post-Vatican II church. Photographs of Maciel and John Paul fed the apparatus
linked to fundraising: a Web site, the weekly National Catholic
Register, and a news service in Rome, Zenit.

The Legion did what no other order does: sent seminarians out with
priests to seek funds from donors. Maciel became the most successful fundraiser
of the late-20th-century church, fueling a $60 million budget for an order with
about 600 priests -- if Legion figures are to believed -- and only 2,500
seminarians. The Vatican budget is $260 million.

The Legions strategy hinged on promoting Maciel as a living saint;
the order marketed itself as re-evangelizing the church. A strategy
of capturing followers permeated the movement, as Regnum Christi is
called, and collided with a post-Vatican II model of pluralism in parish life.
That is why Archbishop Harry Flynn of St. Paul-Minneapolis, Cardinal Roger
Mahony of Los Angeles and several other prelates prohibit the Legion from
functioning in their dioceses. Flynn accused them of promoting a separate
church.

During the past few years Maciel has canceled his spectacular
appearances at the Legionaries annual family day festivals in the United
States. In 2003 Maciel was scheduled to address thousands gathered in Chicago.
When he failed to arrive and event organizers played a videotaped address from
the Legion founder, a reporter speculated in the Chicago Tribune that
Maciel had failed to appear because he feared American abuse-victim groups
would protest his presence.

The official Legion explanation was this: Maciel had been on some
important pastoral visit to South America. From there, he was scheduled to fly
to Chicago. However, said Legion spokesman Dunlap, Maciel was diverted by a
sudden request from an unnamed cardinal to return to Rome on urgent
business.

The Web site
Legionaryfacts.org, and such American Catholics as
Fr. Richard John Neuhaus and Harvard Law Professor Mary Ann Glendon (who also
teaches at the Legion seminary in Rome) have long derided the allegations.
Neuhaus has called them malicious.

A problem for Maciels defenders -- and this papacy -- is that the
genie is out of the bottle: The Vatican itself decided to begin an
investigation. Thirty-two people gave detailed testimony.

Jason Berry is coauthor, with Gerald Renner, of Vows of Silence: The
Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II, published by Free Press in
2004.